Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Your own characters

This is topic Your own characters in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Antinomy (Member # 5136) on :

What is the best character description you have written and why are you pleased with it?

Halogen recently initiated a thread asking for character descriptions from novels that impressed us. It resulted in some very interesting quotes.

I’d like to up the ante, and invite Hatrackers to submit their own favorite character descriptions. Show us what you wrote and tell why you liked it.

Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :

Blech. I can't write anything as good as those lines I posted from Carey. But here are a few lines from near the opening of a novel.

quote:
“I could find a trail for us to explore, you know.”
“Are you serious, or is that one of your jibes?” Tamra's chain mail was laid out neatly on a nearby chair where she had left it when she first arrived at Jessup's isolated cabin. She started pulling on the padding for the chausses and haubergeon.
He was leaning back against the headboard, one knee propped up and the sheet draped across his midriff. He ruffled his short-cropped brown hair with his hand, pausing before he went on.
“Well--what would you say if I was serious? What if I want you to leave with me?”

That's about as much of a description as you get of them.

There is a little point in there about Tamra that amuses me since it says so much about her. I recently sold that novel to a small pub house in case anyone is interested--only epub/pod so I don't want to make too much of it.

Edit: *bonks head* There fixed the quote.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited December 14, 2007).]

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

"Fatty waited outside the trough. His twitch was going crazy like it always did when he was pissed. His face and shoulders ticked and twitched like mad. He seen a cat once what had the rabies, and the way it twitched and carried on, Fatty thought that was probably about what he looked like when his twitch got going good like this."

Possibly the funnest (although most disgusting) character/perspective I've ever written.

Posted by Alethea Kontis (Member # 3748) on :

"My name is Sunday Woodcutter, and I'm ungrateful."

This line still makes me smile. In eight words you know that: Sunday is a Woodcutter's daughter. She's polite enough to introduce herself, confident (and flippant) enough to speak about her personal behavior, and self-depreciating enough to admit such a terrible thing. The reader could also probably guess Sunday's age from the tone of the voice -- that she's a teen repeating what her mother has said to her (no doubt repeatedly), and it's just easier for her to resign herself and believe it than try to prove otherwise.

It's the first line of the short story "Sunday", that appeared in the October 2006 Realms of Fantasy.

I am currently halfway though the novelization of that story.
It still has that same first line.

Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :

"And even though he stood there smiling, John was a cold, dead fool."

Posted by Alethea Kontis (Member # 3748) on :

Nice, Zero.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

There's a writing exercise from John Gardner (must be in ART OF FICTION, which I can't find, because it doesn't seem to be in ON BECOMING A NOVELIST, which I can find), that asks writers to write a paragraph of description.

The purpose of the paragraph is to show what the point of view character is feeling, but the rules of the exercise are that the character must not be mentioned in the description and that what is described is something irrelevant that the character is looking at while feeling the feeling.

For example, a character who has just become engaged to the love of his/her life might look at a lake on a sunny day and use all kinds of joyous, positive expressions to describe how the lake looks to the character. But a character who has just found out that his/her loved one is not only unfaithful, but has laughed about him/her to others would be more likely to emphasize negative things about the view of the lake, like the glare of the sun off of the surface and the irritating noise of people near or in the lake.

I'm not a fan of lots of description, but I've always thought the above would be a useful exercise in characterization.

Posted by 'Graff (Member # 2648) on :

JB handed me the box -- sometimes he was just too eager. Like a puppy, you know? Always wanting to hump your leg.

Posted by Antinomy (Member # 5136) on :

The big man grasped the smaller man’s long rifle barrel with ease as if it were a broom handle, then held it upright with one hand, butt between his feet. With his free hand he tamped the charge with a ramrod. Avery’s dark eyes concentrating on the task, his broad pale face reminded Harley of two olives on a white dinner plate.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

Okay, I found it, and it was in THE ART OF FICTION by John Gardner.

Page 203 (of my paperback copy):

Exercise 4d.

quote:
Describe a building as seen by a man whose son has just been killed in a war. Do not mention the son, war, death, or the old man doing the seeing; then describe the same building, in the same weather and at the same time of day, as seen by a happy lover. Do not mention love or the loved one.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

Gardner also lists some group exercises that might be interesting to try here on Hatrack.

Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :

Never read that one either. I'll add it to my list. The list of books I've actually read on writing is rather short.

Posted by lehollis (Member # 2883) on :

The following is an excerpt from my own notes on a couple characters. I wrote it in prose-y form to get the feel, but it is too infodump-y to appear like this in the narration.)

quote:
Afflicted with dwarfism, Findo might reach a full four and a half feet in height if not for his hunched back. Despite his attempt at fine clothing, such as his Alice-blue hooded silk-lined cloak he usually wears, Findo presents an uninviting picture.
Though his smile is easy, the missing tooth (and the chipped one beside it) makes it more preposterous than welcoming. Above his cockeyed grin, a trio of bulging warts fights for domination of his nose.
He has proudly grown his hair long, but it's wispy and does little to hide that most of it has taken leave in search of ground more fertile. Perhaps it could no longer tolerate the faint reek trailing him wherever he goes. What is left doesn't even cover his ears, which flare out to each side of his round face like sails reaching for the wind.
A simple band of silver adorns one of his sausage fingers. His clothing is elegant, but sadly out of fashion, worn from too many sequential days of use and stretched over a rotund belly.
When he speaks, his squeaking voice has all the charm of nails drawn across a slate.

I don't develop characters like this anymore. Nowadays, my notes are more clipped and broken. It was a phase.

EDIT: No, not my best description. It just stuck with me (never got used in an actual story.)

[This message has been edited by lehollis (edited December 14, 2007).]

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

"She was a sloppy-looking chick with too much make-up. Her lips were painted bright red and her eyes were smeared all over with dark crap that made her look used-up and tired. Her hair was dyed blonde, and Giovanni could see her dark roots, even in the dim light of the bar. She wore a tank-top and a denim skirt, neither one big enough. She wasn’t exactly fat, but she was flabby, and her clothes just barely contained her, like a pressurized can of biscuit dough waiting to pop at the slightest provocation."

[This message has been edited by wetwilly (edited December 19, 2007).]

Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :

Kathleen, I like that group exercises idea. Anyone else find that interesting?

Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :

Yeah it could fun if not interesting.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

Well, I'll see if I can arrange to start a topic on one and let you all play.

Keep your eyes on the skies--er, no, I mean, the Writing Challenges area.

Posted by KayTi (Member # 5137) on :

I like a bit from a story of mine that goes something like:

He smiled, with a smile that was more teeth than lips.

(It was describing a salesman.)

Posted by SchamMan89 (Member # 5562) on :

"Nash gripped his blanket because it was the only thing left to hold onto."

One of the two protagonists, Nash, is a terrible swordsman who has awful self-esteem. His blanket is his security blanket of sorts. He wears it as a cape later on in the series as he gains confidence and skill.

~Chris

[This message has been edited by SchamMan89 (edited December 20, 2007).]

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

KayTi, very nice. From the description, I already imagined a salesman before I even read that it was a salesman.

Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

Convinced that she could trust no one to pick up where she left off, she worked herself to death making sure that nothing dropped.

Posted by MartinV (Member # 5512) on :

I just realized that I created not a single character that could be described as being excessively happy. Sure, they laugh sometimes, but none of them is joyous (I would write 'gay' instead but that word has a different meaning nowadays...). At this point I'm thinking of Kaylee from Firefly series.

Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

Martin, I have one but that's a smoke screen much like Kaylee's was.

Her description of herself is "If I stopped laughing, I'd never stop crying."

Posted by MartinV (Member # 5512) on :

When did Kaylee say something like that?

Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :

It was KayTi who posted something similar, I believe.

[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited December 22, 2007).]

Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

Martin,
Kaylee didn't say that. But I always thought her "shiny" was part of avoiding somethind bad that happened. In my experience most people who are chronically happy really aren't. The quote was from one of my characters.